Eddie Long

Eddie Lee Long (12 May 1953-15 January 2017) was an American Baptist pastor who led the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia from 1987 to 2017.

Biography
Eddie Lee Long was born in Huntersville, North Carolina in 1953, and he worked as a factory sales representative for Ford until he was fired for submitting expense reports which included personal telephone calls. He went on to move to Atlanta to study ministry and became the pastor of a small Jonesboro church, becoming pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in 1987. His church's membership grew from 300 to 25,000 due to his mixture of Baptist and Pentecostal beliefs, but, in 2010, the church became a center for scandal after multiple male parishioners sued Long for pressuring several teenage male members of his church into sexual relationships with him (despite Long frequently criticizing the LGBT community). Long plied the young boys with presents and trips in exchange for sex, but he prepared statements and resolved the case out of court. He died of cancer in 2017 at the age of 63.